Addressing the gender dimensions of COVID-related school closures

This report examines how COVID-related school closures affect education through a gender lens, synthesizing evidence from past crises (notably Ebola) and early pandemic signals to identify gendered risks and outline gender-responsive policy actions—positioning the pandemic as both a threat and an opportunity to "build back equal." The note warns that over 11 million girls may drop out due to the pandemic's economic impact. It identifies key risks, including increased unpaid care burdens limiting girls' learning time, spikes in gender-based violence, heightened exposure of adolescent girls to early/forced marriage and adolescent pregnancy, a widening digital gender divide in access to distance learning, and compounded vulnerabilities in refugee and displacement settings. It concludes with action-oriented recommendations, including diversified distance-learning modalities, cross-sectoral support for adolescent girls, gender-responsive reopening policies such as fee waivers, improved sanitation infrastructure, vocational training pathways for women, and targeted financial support, such as cash transfers, to boost girls' re-enrolment and retention.